Week 5

For the last week of class we are supposed to talk about the overall impact of the course; I can say just from learning about how much trouble you can get in, I started to become aware of everything that I was doing when I was working on the research project. We had a picture of a poll and I was not sure if we were allowed to use it, but we could, we just had to site it correctly. I’m not the type of person to do something like that on purpose, it would be an accident. After Bonnie told us about copyright laws I realized that a lot of things that I use and that people around me use are copyrighted, and that we have to be careful. I definitely think that this course was helpful because if I had not taken it I would always be wondering when I’m supposed to site things, or if I’m doing it correctly. I know now that you should always site no matter what, especially when you are unsure.  I understand more about citations and places that I can go in order to help me complete them; for example, I was very interested in the site Zotero, because it seemed like it would be a big help in the future. The other most helpful thing about this class was finding places to look for research materials; I never knew there were so many different databases imbedded into one site, such as the PSU Libraries site, that we can use to find the reliable information we need. I would always have to refer to Google or one site that I did know of when my teachers told us to do research, unless they specified where we should go. I think that the idea of using New Media is also great, because it can be a fun way of learning; I never even thought that I could go to Twitter and use that as a source! Also, using a video; just because it’s not text, does not mean it isn’t trustworthy or accurate. I will definitely keep all of the things that I have learned in this class in mind for future assignments! Thank you Bonnie and Amanda!